Be Not Proud
by eena-angel2001
Summary: AU-Future Fic, she left because she thought the bloodshed was over, but she didn't know, it had only yet begun.
1. Prologue

Title: Be Not Proud

Author: EenaAngel2001

Email: 

Rating: R

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowlings owns the Harry Potter world and its characters.

Spoilers: up to OotP.

Summary: AU Future fic, she left because she thought the bloodshed was over, but she didn't know, it had only yet begun.

Notes: Title from John Donne's poem "Death, Be Not Proud"

Prologue

"Well, that no-violence rule of yours didn't last very long, now did it?"

She felt like her insides were being twisted and pulled at. Tears streamed down her face as she mindlessly wiped the traces of vomit away from the corners of her mouth. Her stomach was still upset and it seemed very likely that she would become sick again. She couldn't believe what had happened; she couldn't believe what she had just done. Maybe this was all a bad dream, and soon she'd wake up in her small bed with nothing more than a bad memory of this nightmare.

She wasn't sure what had happened. It had been too fast, and too sudden for her to make much sense of it. She knew that there was a dead body on the floor, that she was holding the murder weapon, and that there were three other people in the room who seemed to have no problem with the fact that she had just killed someone. They hadn't even flinched when she screamed and threw up what little breakfast she had eaten before. They acted like it was something trivial.

"Of course, I never thought that you were that serious about it. Hell, even Crabbe here said he thought that this was just some sort of 'phase' you were going through. We were laying bets on how long you'd last. And you want to know what the really funny thing is? Pansy would have won that bet. She said you'd drop it the second we tried anything. She didn't have that much confidence in your supposed self-restraint. Turns out that she was right; too bad she wasn't smart enough to prepare for it. But I guess she was right. All you needed was the proper motivation, and you would put all this no violence nonsense to rest. I guess one never really loses that sense of self-preservation, no matter how much they insist that they have. The desire to live always wins out over the desire to do the right thing."

If only he would go away. If he just left she could pretend like this never happened. She could convince herself that this was just a dream, a hallucination even. The blood pooling on the ground, the bloodied dagger in her hand, that still body over there, staring at her with vacant blue eyes-she could wish it all away if he would just leave her alone.

But he wouldn't leave her alone. He had come for a reason; they had all come for a reason. She never thought to ask them what that reason might be. Of course, they hadn't given her much of a chance to question them. One minute she had been going through her daily prayers, and the next minute she was surrounded by four hooded figures, three of which immediately rushed to restrain her. It was when the dagger was produced that she truly started to understand what was going to happen her. She supposed it was the fear that gave her that extra boost of strength to shrug off two of her captors. It was pure survival instinct that drove her to fight her assailant for the dagger. And sometime between that scuffle and now, she had taken that dagger and slammed it into the heart of her old schoolmate.

"One would think that one of Golden Boy's favourite pets would have been better prepared for something like this. You don't even have your wand on you. You really did give it up, didn't you? I thought that particular rumour was just an exaggeration. What witch or wizard in their right mind would give up their wand? But then again, you've aren't regularly accused of being in your right mind, are you? However, I am still shocked, and a little disappointed to see how slack you've become. A few short years ago, this kind of carelessness would have gotten you killed. It almost got you killed this time; but I guess you haven't forgotten about everything Scarhead and the old coot taught you. But still, very poor form for a former member of the oh-so-wonderful Order of the Phoenix."

She was still clutching the dagger in her hand. There was blood stuck in between her fingers, and it was hardening in those cracks. Moving her fingers slowly, one by one, she thought it felt almost like jelly. That thought almost made her laugh. She used to love jelly on her toast. She would just layer up her bread with the stuff and make the most awful mess. There would be jelly on the counter, jelly on her hands, and sometimes even jelly in her hair. But after tonight, she didn't think she would ever be able to eat jelly again. It was an awful shame.

"Of course, the rumours about you are just nonsense. Do you know that _Witch Weekly_ reported that the real reason you left was because you and Potter had a terrible falling out. There was this whole story about a romance gone wrong, a bitter break-up, and the utter heartache it caused you to be around the prat. Utter crap, the entire thing, but most people seemed to buy it as an explanation. None of the newspapers could be bothered with tracking you down and finding out the truth for themselves, could they? It's not like you've made it that difficult to find you. We had relatively no problems discovering your location. You just didn't put that much effort into hiding. Now, why is that? Tell me, did you want to be found?"

There was a frightful amount of blood in the human body. There was just tons of it, swirling around the body, and when it came out, it came out by the bucketful. The body had been lifeless for nearly twenty minutes now, and the blood just seemed to keep on coming. Funny, the body was so cold now, and yet the blood was still warm. She thought that it could be colder once it hit the stone floor, but she was wrong. It was still warm; and it was still flowing out of the body as steady as a stream. If it weren't so heartbreaking, she would have been fascinated.

"I suppose that's a stupid question to ask, since I know the answer anyway. Of course you wanted to be found, but you certainly didn't want us to find you. You had your heart set on someone else. A certain redheaded someone else, if I'm not mistaken. It's pathetic really; after all these years, you're still pining over that overgrown ape. And I don't think he's even noticed yet. Of course, you can't really blame him. He's just too dense to notice things like that, even when everyone else on the planet has realized it. I wonder, do you think that he's going to come rushing in to rescue you right now? I hate to crush your hopes, but it's not likely to happen. The whole lot of them have conveniently forgotten about the four of us. Apparently they have bigger fish to fry, though I can't imagine who that could be, especially when they nailed the man himself years ago. You remember that, don't you? Of course you do, you were there. You were one of the first to level the Killing Curse his way."

The dagger, despite being covered with blood, was actually very nice. It was long and jaggedly shaped. The hilt was made of silver and adorned with a few emeralds here and there. She supposed that green and silver were still their favourite colours, even after all this time away from the school. She remembered that she had never really liked her own school colours. She would have preferred something that was brighter than what she got. Maybe pink or orange, something different and unique. She mentioned it once to her Head of House, and she never actually got a proper reply to her request.

"You want to know what I think? I think that it was that battle that did it for you. It wasn't any sort of romance or sordid affairs that drove you away; it was that final battle. You'd never used the Killing Curse before. You've heard about it, studied it no doubt, but you've never used it. I don't think that you ever even saw it in action before that day in Godric's Hollow. That was your first and only experience with the Killing Curse, and not only did you witness what it did, you were responsible for it. That's what made you run away after the dust settled. It was the guilt, the trauma of having had to take a life. You Order idiots always talked big about settling things and using whatever means possible to stop the Dark Lord, but when it came right down to it, you couldn't live with what you had to do. That's why you scrambled your way far from England and into this quaint little monastery. And then you threw yourself into whatever forms of restraint and abstinence you had at your disposal. No meat, no men, no talking, no violence-nothing but prayer and toil. And now, after five hard years of this self-enforced isolation, you're right back where you started from."

The dagger had a dragon carved into the hilt. It was quite beautiful to look at. The creature was small, but looked menacing nonetheless. She supposed it would be ludicrous to expect a dragon to appear to be anything other than menacing, but she wondered if it had to look as cruel as it did. It was made with its mouth hanging open just a bit, so that you could see a hint of fang underneath the lip. Its eyes were two tiny bits of emerald, and a heavy brow framed them. It was like the creature was scowling at her. Perhaps it disapproved of what she had done, or maybe it was just that her mind was playing tricks on her. She couldn't be sure, her mind just wasn't able to process everything. Maybe this is that post-traumatic shock thing that she had heard Muggles prattle on about.

"But Scarhead and his band of loser followers have kept up the good fight, as I'm sure you know. That's why they're not here right now; they're rather busy tracking down dangerous Death Eaters. They seem to be particularly focused on some members of the Black family. I suppose that's Potter's doing. He's still got that itch for Bellatrix Lestrange. He just won't rest until he kills the old bat, and trust me, she is an old bat. I guess he never did get over that mess from fifth year. Oh well, more power to him. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and after eleven years, this dish is as cold as it's getting. I suppose when he finally gets his hands on her, there'll be some sort of party. You'd be invited, of course. I heard that even though you've been out of the loop, that Potter still tries to include you in things. Maybe _Witch Weekly_ wasn't all that wrong with that article they printed. Did the Golden Boy ever have a thing for you? If he did, that would make this whole situation even more pleasing."

The blood is getting closer and closer to her. She shuffled backwards just a bit, and stopped when she felt the foot of one of her captors against the small of her back. She didn't turn her head upwards to see who it was, because it didn't really matter anymore. The only thing that concerned her right now was that pool of blood that just kept getting closer and closer. She did not want to see it, she did not want to smell it, and she certainly did not want to touch it. She had enough blood on her for today, thank you very much; she wasn't in the mood for more of it.

"I do have a question for you: how come you never sought revenge for your family? I know what happened to your father, and to your grandparents. They did not leave this world quickly, or painlessly. It was one of the most brutal killings I can remember, and even though you knew that it was Nott that did the deed, you never went after him yourself. Why was that? I'm sure if you asked him nicely, Potter would have saved Nott for you. You could have punished him for what he did to your family, but you never did. I saw you during that raid on Knockturn Alley. You had him in your grasp, you could have done anything to him and none of your companions would have faulted you for it. But you just stood there and let Weasel kill him, like it didn't even matter to you that this man was the one that butchered every last living relative you had ever known. If I had been in your shoes, there wouldn't have been anything left of Nott to bury."

Her eyes slid from the nearing pool of blood to the ceiling overhead. It was a plain monastery, without much decoration or luxury, but she had always found it to be so beautiful. It was so simple and yet so majestic, she had been in love with it at first sight. The second she stepped onto the grounds, she knew that she would never willingly leave this place. It was everything that she had wanted. It was isolated, tranquil, and far away from anything connected to her life before. And now she would never be able to think on it with kind thoughts. After what had happened today, she would never be able to think of this place without her stomach turning.

"What's wrong pet? Don't you feel like talking with me? You know, I've spent a good deal of time planning this whole excursion. You could at least pretend that you're glad to see me. I didn't have to come here, you know. There were plenty of other candidates for this little plot, but I picked you because I thought you would be perfect."

"Perfect for what?" It was the first time she had uttered a noise since that horrible moment when she had slid the dagger into soft, pale flesh of her attacker. Her voice sounded weak to her ears, and even she could hear the defeat in her tone. It certainly seemed apparent to him, because he was smiling quite broadly now.

"Well, well, well, she finally speaks. You know, I was starting to wonder if you had taken some sort of morbid vow of silence after you gutted Pansy like that. I'm glad to see that that isn't the case. In fact, I've missed hearing your voice over these past years. The stuff you used to say was utter crap, but you've always had such a nice voice. You should have been a singer, you know, and left all that fighting stuff to Potter and his bunch. You probably would have avoided this whole mess too."

"Perfect for what?" she repeated without recognition of his other words.

"Now, that would be telling, and I really would hate to spoil the surprise. All you need to know is that from here on out, you and I are going to be very close. And I mean **very** close. Hey now, no need to shed tears over it. It's not the worst thing in the world. I say you lucked out. It very easily could have been Crabbe or Goyle that you were to be 'close' with. You should be grateful."

"What do you want from me, Draco?" she moaned pitifully. "Why are you here? It's all over now. It's been over for five years."

"Actually, darling, it hasn't been over for five years. In fact, five years ago, it had only just begun. If you and your little band of bleeding heart-Mudblood lovers thought that the worst had passed, you were sorely mistaken. What's coming, what you're going to help bring about, will be unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. Do you think that we would actually stop after the old man bit the dust? It didn't stop us the first time, it certainly won't stop us now. And this time, we don't have to worry about doddering old fools who want to waste all their time trying to kill children when there's actual evil to be done."

She felt as if he had stabbed her with an ice pick. She didn't think it ever occurred to them that the Death Eaters would be able to carry on after Voldemort's demise. They certainly seemed to have scattered to the wind in confused packs. But they underestimated them, she realized that now. She raised frightened blue eyes to meet fierce grey ones. He smiled wickedly and turned to look at his two companions.

"Collect the blood," he ordered them. "I'll go ahead with her. Do not dawdle; I don't want Potter to know that any of us are involved."

Crabbe and Goyle nodded obediently and immediately produced jars, which they immediately started to fill with Pansy's blood. She watched them with wide eyes, not understanding what was happening and not sure that she wanted to know. She jerked when Draco grabbed her by the arm and hauled her roughly to her feet. She barely had time to focus before he performed the Apparition spell. She felt the familiar wrenching feeling in her stomach before her feet touch the ground once again.

She opened her eyes to find a run-down house in front of her. It looked like be Victorian-styled, and very old and ill-kept. There were shingles missing from the rooftop and the paint was peeling off almost everywhere. The lawn in front was all yellow and most dead. There was no garden to speak of, and it looked as if it was located in the middle of a forest.

"Well Luna darling," Draco chuckled into her ear. "Welcome to your new home."


	2. Though Some Have Called Thee Mighty And ...

Chapter One: Though Some Have Called Thee Mighty And Dreadful . . .

_"Take it. Please."_

_Harry stood there in shock, looking down at the wand being pressed into his hands. He raised confused green eyes to meet her determined blue ones. "But why?" he asked._

_She paused, and then just shrugged. "I don't think there's any way of explaining it that you would understand," she said softly. "I don't say that to be mean, I swear it. But I really can't see one of my reasons making sense to you."_

_"Tell me anyway," he begged her. "Please Luna, let's just talk about this-"_

_"And what? Try to find another way?" she gave a bitter laugh while running a hand through her scraggly dirty blonde hair. "There isn't another way. I just can't do this anymore."_

_"But it's over now," he argued. "We're all finally safe. We can have futures, we can be happy, we can-"_

_"Be together?" she finished for him. "Harry, you don't want that."_

_"Well, it certainly seems like I do," Harry countered angrily._

_"Harry, this thing, it's not real," she sighed. "We both know we shouldn't have started it. But you were upset about losing Susan, and I was so alone after Daddy died . . . Harry, it was never going to last after the end."_

_"Geez Luna, you sure know how to kick a guy when he's down," he grumbled._

_"Now, don't lie, you're not down. You're the highest you've ever been," she smiled warmly at him. "You have no idea how happy it makes me to see you like this. You're finally free of that man, and it shows. You know, in the six years I've known you, I've never seen you greet the day with a smile? Now, I see it almost everyday."_

_"Luna, please, don't do this," Harry pleaded with her. "If you don't want to stay with me, that's fine. You're right; it was never meant to last forever, but that doesn't mean I want it to end. But if that's what it takes to get you to stay-"_

_"I'm not leaving because of you, Harry Potter," she admonished him. "Actually, you're one of the big reasons that made me consider staying. And if I could stay for you, Harry, I would. I don't want it to end either, but I can't carry on like this anymore. Everything's different; so many things happened. I'm not that little girl who used to trail after you, babbling about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and whatnot. I have done things that I'm not proud of doing, seen things that I can't get out of my mind. I can't have peace here, Harry. I just can't."_

_"So your solution is to run from the problem?" Harry shook his head. "Luna, you've always said that it was better to fight for what's yours. And this is yours; it's a part of you, it always will be."_

_"Not any more," she said firmly. "Right now, I never want to do magic again."_

_"Luna, this is ridiculous. It had to be done-"_

_"Of course it did, I never said that it didn't. But that doesn't change the fact that I helped to take lives out on that battlefield. I don't regret it, because I know what would have happened if we had lost. I fought that war with everything I had in me. But just because I don't regret it doesn't mean that I'm okay with it. I've killed Harry, regardless of the reason, I'm a murderer. And that's something that I have to deal with. I can't do that here."_

_"So we can send you to a Ministry safehouse," Harry said. "You can be alone and safe at the same time."_

_"I'm not going to a safehouse, Harry," she told him quietly._

_"Luna, there are dangerous people out there who would be more than happy to kill you," Harry exclaimed. "Why can't you see that your plan puts you in danger? You won't even tell me where you're going-"_

_"And if you truly needed to find me someday, you won't have that much difficulty," she assured him. "I don't need a Secret Keeper, in fact, I don't need any sort of magic for this. And what's more important, I don't want to use any magic for this. I just want to go away from here. Can't you see that I need to do this?"_

_He fell silent. He knew it was pointless to try and argue with her. Luna had made up her mind, and nothing could get her to change her mind. She was as stubborn as they came; and she wasn't going to take no for an answer. She was going, she was really going, and he honestly didn't think she had any intention of coming back. It was written all over her face. Luna Lovegood was leaving the Wizarding world behind._

_"I wish that you wouldn't leave," he whispered to her._

_"I know," she said sadly. "And I wish that I could stay with you."_

_"But you can't," he finished for her. She nodded once, brushing a tear away from the corner of her eye._

_"I'm sorry Harry . . ."_

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Harry Potter sat in his office at the Ministry of Magic, ignored paperwork strewn all over his desk as he sat there, fiddling with a string of old butterbeer caps. Luna had made this for him back in seventh year for Christmas. At the time, he had been absolutely horrifed at the sight of it. It hadn't done much for his reputation to have gotten such a gift from a girl everyone still called "Loony Lovegood" right up until her graduation. Of course, he had only been seventeen back then. And when you're seventeen, you just don't have the right perspective. That was something that you gained over time and through experience. And that was why he sat at his desk, playing with a gift that once embarrassed him, but now was one of his most prized possessions.

It had barely been a month after the final battle when Luna had come and told him of her plans to leave. He had been shocked, and hurt, to say the least, but none of his arguments could sway her from her decision. She turned in her wand and kissed him goodbye before he was even able to walk out of St. Mungo's on his own. How he had begged her to stay. The press would have loved to have seen that. The great Harry Potter, on his knees, begging the "eccentric Lovegood girl", as they called her, not to leave.

Luna had been one of his best lieutenants in the war with Voldemort. She was a brilliant girl, as most Ravenclaws are, and she had such courage that Harry often wondered why she hadn't been sorted into Gryffindor in her first year. She had been one of the top strategists in his camp, and when the time had come for the final battle, it was Luna, along with Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and himself, who devised the attack plan. It had been a successful campaign. Too successful, it would seem.

She couldn't handle the killing. He should have known it; he should have kept her out of the battle. But they were low on men, and she wouldn't have stayed behind even if he ordered her. She knew it had to be done, and she did it for the greater good, but afterwards, she couldn't look at herself in the mirror anymore. Whatever the reason, she had killed, and she simply could not handle it anymore.

It should have been obvious to him after the Knockturn Raid. Nott had been there. That disgusting bag of slime who had murdered her father and her grandparents, that bastard who had the gall to taunt her after he had been arrested, he had been there. And no matter how much she hated him, she couldn't make herself raise her wand and say those two awful words. Not even when Nott broke free of his chains and came after her with a dagger. She had stood there, perfectly still, and let Ron take care of the situation for her. She hadn't even looked at Nott's body after it had been done. She merely thanked Ron for his quick thinking and then Apparated herself back to headquarters.

It was not in Luna's nature to kill, to take life away, even from the most vile of creatures. What she had done in the final battle had been done out of necessity. Those had been desperate times, and they had executed a desperate plan. They were lucky to escape with only a 32 percent casualty rate. The Death Eaters had not been so lucky. Hermione estimated that 65 percent of the Death Eaters died at Godric's Hollow alone. And many more of them ended up either in Azkaban, or dead alongside their former comrades. It had been a decisive victory; but not one without its costs.

The Patil twins, Seamus Finnigan, Dennis Creevey, Hannah Abott, his darling Susan Bones, Michael Corner, Kingsly Shacklebolt, Percy Weasley, Fleur Weasley, Viktor Krum-the list went on. Those who had survived had been hit hard by their losses, and some, like Luna, just had to get away from it. However, all of those people had come back after a short time, and Luna still insisted on being locked away in her little monastery in Sri Lanka.

Yes, he knew where she was. She was right; if he ever needed to find her, she wouldn't make it hard on him to find her. However, it wasn't him that tracked her down. Two months after her departure, Ron limped into his office and threw down a file that contained her location.

"She said you could only find her if it was an emergency," Ron had shrugged. "She didn't say anything about the rest of us."

He still sent her letters, they all did, and they kept up appearances by sending mail to anonymous Muggle P.O. box instead of directly to her little monastery. She probably knew that they knew where she was, and was glad that they decided to respect her decisions by staying away. Harry himself had never ventured near the place out of respect to Luna, though he knew that Ginny and Ron made a habit of sneaking down there at least once a year to assure themselves that she was doing well. Ginny always reported that she looked fine, but Ron was constantly complaining that Luna looked thinner every time he went. She was obviously incapable of taking care of herself properly, he argued, they should just bring her home so that they could keep a closer eye on her. It took all of his strength, and Hermione's, to keep Ron from doing that exact thing.

No matter how strange he thought she was back in school, Ron and Luna had grown close during the fight against Voldemort. He had been with her when they discovered the bodies of her relatives. Ron had helped her through that entire ordeal, and when he found out that she left, he almost lost his mind. His arguments against her departure were exactly the same as Harry's, and so they would presumably have the same lack of effect on Luna. Ron hadn't stopped his quest to get Luna to return home, and his letters to her all contained the same message. He wanted her to come home; and she would never agree. She wasn't ready to return just yet, she still needed more time. But it had been five years. Wasn't that enough time? Couldn't she drag herself away from that place for even a brief visit? Harry hadn't laid eyes on Luna since the day she left, and right now, he really wanted to see her.

It had been eleven years in the making, but he had finally done it. Harry Potter had finally caught up with Bellatrix Lestrange and got revenge for his godfather. He hadn't killed her, though he had wanted to, but she was now back in her old cell at Azkaban, shrieking death threats at anyone who came within ten feet of her cell. She was due to get the Kiss in a few days, and that would be it. The final high-ranking Death Eater would be effectively shut down, and it would only be some of Voldemort's younger and weaker underlings left to deal with. Draco Malfoy and his little clique were still unaccounted for, as was Marcus Flint, Blaise Zabini, and a few other of his former schoolmates. They'd be found, and soon. They were running out of places to hide, and now they had none of the veteran Death Eaters to rely on. It was all a matter of time.

His thoughts turned from Luna to the bottle of Firewhiskey in his top drawer. He felt that familiar itch swell up in him again. He really shouldn't have any; he was trying to cut back. Hermione and Ginny had begged him to lay off the liquor. Ginny had even cried while she begged him, and so he had promised to try. But it seemed that whenever his thoughts turned to the things in the past, the urge to toss back a few was almost irrestible. It took the edge off, and sometimes, Harry needed that more than he needed the air he breathed.

Harry was pulled out of his thoughts by a knock on his door. He looked up just in time to see Ron and Hermione enter, the latter shooting very exasperated looks at the former. All thoughts of the Firewhiskey fled his mind as she watched the two of them squabble like they always did.

"Twenty-six, and you still haven't mastered the most basic rules of etiquette," she muttered disapprovingly. "You're supposed to wait for an invitation before entering a room, Ron."

"I knocked, isn't that enough?" Ron asked, though his question was directed more towards Harry than to Hermione. Harry just shrugged and waved them into his visitor chairs.

"What brings you here? he asked them.

"We've come to drag you away for lunch," Hermione announced as she took her seat. "You work so much and forget to eat. It's not healthy to skip meals. So, it's time for lunch."

"Hermione, it's three in the afternoon."

"A late lunch then," she shrugged before flashing him a sheepish smile. "We were planning on getting you sometime after noon, but we got buried in work, and so . . ."

Ron rolled his eyes at his friend before setting his eyes on Harry. "So, have you heard from her?" he asked with a gesture to the necklace.

Harry sighed and dropped the necklace on his desk. "Unfortunately, no. She hasn't responded to my letter just yet, but then again, I did just send it three days ago. Muggle mail does take some time to get things from here to Sri Lanka."

"We should just pop in and tell her what the news is," Ron grumbled. "It's not like we'd be trying to get her to leave again. Just telling her the good news-"

"And bringing magic back into her life," Hermione finished for him. "You know how she feels about the matter. She wants to be magic-free for the time being, and we have to respect that. And that means we can't just Apparate ourselves into the middle of her monastery to catch up."

"Hermione's right, as usual," Harry added. "We have to respect her wishes. She would do no less for any of us. And I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a bit better with Bellatrix behind bars. That's the last major Death Eater out there. Whether or not she knows it, Luna's a lot safer than she was before."

"I'm sure she'll send a response as soon as she gets Harry's letter," Hermione said. "And who knows? Maybe this event is big enough to lure even Luna out of hiding."

"You honestly believe that?" Ron asked with an arched eyebrow.

Hermione smiled and weakly, and then sighed. "No, not really. But we can hope, can't we?"

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"I know it's not much, but it's the best I can afford right now. I hope it's not too much of an inconvenience. But then again, it's still a lot better than what you've had for the last little while, isn't it?"

Luna shut her eyes tight and tried hard not to shake as Draco draped an arm around her shoulders and guided her through the doors of her new "home", as he called it. The arm that was casually hanging over her shoulders now tightened as Luna attempted to drag her feet in protest. His fingers dug into her arm as his other hand snaked out to grasp her by the waist. He squeezed her hard and she gave a tiny gasp in shock.

"Don't be so difficult, Luna," he ordered her. "We're already here, and there's nowhere for you to go. So you might as well get used to it. Come on girl, open your eyes and look upon our humble abode."

She finally opened her eyes, if only to avoid irritating him further. From what she remembered of her school days, Draco Malfoy was not a pleasant individual once he was annoyed. She had been there in the Gryffindor seats during her sixth year, and she had seen him break Ginny's arm by striking her with a beater club. after the redhead had dared to mock his Seeker abilities. That particular stunt had gotten him tossed from the game, and nearly suspended until Professor Snape interceded on his behalf. Draco was given a month's detention, and Ron matched him for that time after he attempted to kill the boy for assaulting his sister. That had started the worst feud between Gryffindor and Slytherin in twenty years, and several students were on the verge of expulsion before the end of the year. Pansy Parkinson had been one of those individuals, after Professor Hagrid accused her of trying to kill his dog Fang, though that was never proven.

Pansy. Merlin, she had killed Pansy Parkinson. Pansy Parkinson, with her straight black hair and ice-cold blue eyes. Pug-Faced Parkinson is what they had called her back in school. She had been an utter cow in her youth, and she hadn't changed much when she became an adult. She was wretched at school, at everything except DADA and Potions. She had been attached to Draco's side since Luna's second year, had accompanied him to the Ball during the Triwizard Tournament, and been apart of Umbridge's Squad during that dreadful fourth year. Pansy had always been cruel to her, always turned her nose up at her when passing her in the hallways, and more than once she had tripped Luna up in the middle of the hall. And now Pansy was dead, and she was to blame.

"I'm going to be sick," she mumbled pitfully as she stumbled. Her stomach was churning violently as the visions of Pansy's body came back to her. And the blood, all that damn blood. Crabbe and Goyle had been collecting it when she felt. Why on earth would they be doing that? What were they planning?

"Really Luna," Draco admonished her as he led her further into the house. "You're not handling this well at all. I expected more from you, being one of Potter's former stars."

"That was a long time ago," she replied, grateful to see that he had directed her to the washroom. She fell to her knees before the toilet just as the bile rose up her throat. She clenched the sides of the toilet as she was sick, barely able to stop herself from jerking when Draco held back her hair for her.

"Such a mess," he said with a cluck of his tongue. "You're going to be high maintenance, aren't you?"

She wiped her mouth with a shaking hand and turned her head sideways to see him. "You could spare yourself a lot of trouble and just let me go," she whispered desperately.

"Now Luna, do you really think that's going to happen?" he asked with a short laugh. "Even if I did decide that you're a lot of trouble, I couldn't let you go now if I wanted to. We've already started, and now we've got to finish."

"Finish what?" she asked tearfully. "What do you want from me, Draco?"

"A whole lot more than you would think," he replied in a serious voice. "You know, before Potter won his glorious war and killed my parents, I had quite the life. A pureblood wizard, with money, looks, and power. And now, I've only got the looks, and hardly any of the power left. Do you know what that war took out of us? All our dark books, all our dark artifacts-all our inheritances! We have nothing, and all because the Dark Lord couldn't get over a pathetic speck of mudblood like Potter. He had to kill the boy himself, couldn't let anyone else do it for him. Do you know how easy it would have been to just walk up behind him the hallways and sink a dagger into his back? It would have been too easy, but we were told to obstruct, but not harm. He was for Lord Voldemort, and only for the Voldemort. And because of that unhealthy obsession, Potter was able to destroy Voldemort and our parents who followed him. We're all that's left of the Death Eaters, and none of those idiots with Potter have even put that much effort in trying to catch us. They think we're weakened without the older generation, but they don't get it. That generation was what held us back. We could have been so much more than what we turned out to be, if it hadn't been for them. We could have won that war, if it hadn't been fot them."

"And now, what?" she demanded. "You're going to start another war? You're going to meet Harry on the battlefield and destroy him once and for all? Draco Malfoy, you could never defeat Harry Potter, no matter what you did. He's above you."

Instead of angering him, her words only made him laugh. "That might be true," he consented. "But I for one am not itching to find out. While the idea of a face-to-face battle to the death between old Scarhead and I is appealing, I have other things to do. You see Luna, you don't win a war by playing by the rules or adhering to a code of conduct. You win a war by doing something the other side would never imagine doing. I think you understand that a bit better than most people. You were with that group of people who killed Voldemort. Imagine, all that talk of good and honour, and the only way you were able to take down your enemy was through deceit and sheer numbers. I wonder, does your conscience never nag you for that stunt you pulled? I mean, lying and manipulation were supposed to be Voldemort's weapons of choice, not yours."

She didn't reply. Her eyes were downcast and focused intently on her hands. Images of Pansy's body was now intermingled with memories of that horrible day on Godric's Hollow. She remembered laying there, waiting nervously for all of it to begin. She remembered seeing Voldemort and his Death Eaters approaching, she remembered grabbing her wand, and she remembered the charge.

"If I could do it again, I would," she said finally. "Because it was a dirty trick, and it wasn't honest, but at that point, none of us cared. You can dissect it all you want, it doesn't change a damn thing. We told you that we wouldn't rest until Voldemort was dead, and we didn't."

"And look at you now," Draco interjected snidely. "You may have won, but you didn't emerge as victorious as you had hoped. Potter spent half of his time chasing after Lestrange, and the other half drinking himself into oblivion. Granger had to give up her dreams of teaching at Hogwarts so she could clean up after the mess her friends made at the Ministry. Weasel's killed so many Death Eaters and dark wizards during the war that he's got a permanent target hanging over his head. Widows, orphans, sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, grandparents-you name it, they want his head for killing a loved one. He's been attacked four times this year alone, and his family's not doing much better either. If half that brood didn't turn out to be Aurors, there would have been no saving them. And you, look at you. You're so damaged by what happened you can't even bare to live in that world you fought so valiantly to create."

"And now what? You lock me away? Torture me for months before dumping me back on Harry's doorstep? Is this the way to get revenge?"

"Not at all," Draco replied, snatching up a bit of her hair to play with. "This isn't revenge, my dear girl, this is how I'm going to win this blasted war, once and for all. You don't get it just yet, but you're worth more than the panic your disappearance will cause for Potter and his Merry Men. You're worth so much more."

She looked up at him as he fiddled with her hair. He merely winked at her before he dropped her hair and pulled her back onto her feet.

"Enough of this nonsense," he said as he pulled her out of the washroom and into the hallway once more. "Now it's time to show you the best part of the house."

She allowed herself to be pulled along behind him. He stopped at the end of the corridor and dragged her until she stood directly in front of him. He had her facing a closed door, and as he reached over to turn the knob, his right arm went around her waist and held her right against his body. He pushed open the door to reveal a fairly clean bedroom. There was a bed, a nighttable, and a larger dresser, but other than that, the room was bare. There was one window in the left wall, but it had bars on it. It reminded her of a prison cell, and she supposed that's what it was meant to be.

"This is the master bedroom," Draco announced as he pushed her further into the room. "We're going to be spending a lot of time here."

"'We'?" she repeated faintly.

"Yes, 'we'," he confirmed. "After all Luna, I told you we were going to be close. And we are going to be close, just like every married couple should be."

She gasped and twisted around to look at him. "'Married'?"

"What? Did I forget to mention that before?"


End file.
